One of those questions that tend to pop up during discussions with aspiring authors revolves around what genres are hot and which one they should write.
For starters, I highly recommend against writing toward trends. It takes a while to write a book. Perhaps a year. Perhaps longer. If you read an agent’s wish list today, by the time you complete the draft, polish and revise the pages, and start to submit, a year or two (or three) could pass. By then, that same agent has been flooded by manuscripts in that trendy genre and don’t want to see another.
A bigger reason is you might not like or understand the genre that’s trending. Example: Romantasy (romance/fantasy) has been the big seller recently. But I’ve never read it and would pull my hair out trying to write it.
Disliking the genre or subject about which you’re writing is not good. Believe me, the reader/agent/editor will know you aren’t having fun.
Is “having fun” important when you’re “working” on a book? Oh, heck yeah.
Why? I’ll give you two reasons. One: unless you’re Stephen King or James Patterson, you likely aren’t going to make enough to live on. Ask a group of published authors, and most will tell you that we write because we love it. Passion is a requirement. We aren’t writing because that royalty check is paying our rent.
And two: you need to love the story you’re writing… because you’re going to have to read it over and over and over again.
The real world of writing doesn’t involve slapping down that first draft and sending it out into the world. After you type THE END for the first time, you need to go back and rewrite. And revise. And rewrite again. Even when the plot shines and the characters sing, you need to make multiple passes to check for overused words. Just for example. I keep a list of my favorites, which will be somewhat different than other writers’, but “just” seems to appear on everyone’s overused list.
Next, let’s say you’re blessed to find an agent. That agent will send you edits to make your book more likely to please an editor. More rewrites, during which you will add 100 more “justs.” So, you have to go back and take them out.
Then, your agent sells your book to a publisher. You’re assigned an editor… who edits. There will be story edits (often called developmental edits), when you’ll be asked to flesh out some threads and eliminate others. You’ll also need to make sure those changes don’t affect other aspects of the book, such as one line of dialogue 200 pages away from where you changed things. Continuity is important.
After that’s complete, your copyeditor sends the manuscript back to you again. This time you have to add or subtract commas, make odd spellings consistent, and clarify terms the copyeditor didn’t understand.
You think you’re
now finished? Oh, no. Now, you have to proofread the entire manuscript,
possibly more than once.
You will ultimately read your book a minimum of seven or eight times. Minimum.
So, you better write a story that you love, because you’re going to spend many hours reading and rereading it.
Fellow Writers Who Kill, how many times on average do you read and revise a single manuscript?
Readers, have you
ever found more than one or two typos in a book you’re reading? (Please do not
name the author if you have.) Do typos or continuity errors take you out of the
story?
Despite numerous passes (edits), I don't think I've ever had a book released without at least one minor typo (that someone like my sister) caught. Fully agree that one needs to write something one enjoys otherwise the piece doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteDebra, there's always one, and always someone to point it out to you after it's been published. Always.
DeleteI am tolerant of two or three typos in a novel. They are the masters of disguise.
ReplyDeleteI had to remind myself of the precise details of something that occurred in one of my earlier books. One with a traditional publisher, professional editor, professional proofreader, several hundred reader ratings. One I had already gone through several years later as part of producing an audiobook.
And, since we're talking typos, you know I found one. Curious, I checked the early drafts of the book and discovered it originated in draft 1 (of 10 drafts), which meant beta readers had missed it, too.
That typo was so good at camouflaging its wrongness, I considered creating a monument in its honor.
Jim, YES. Some typos need to be rewarded for their persistence.
DeleteSome typos deserve to stay in place. If you don't love spending days, weeks, and months with your MC, you will murder her.
ReplyDeleteVery true.
DeleteAh, yes. Despite numerous edits ad revisions, there's always the one thing that stares you in the face in the released copy, mocking your confidence that this one was error-free.
ReplyDelete"Mocking your confidence." YES! That's exactly what they do!
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ReplyDeleteI love writing in my cozy genre! It keeps me semi-sane during hard times. I control the justice and give the world a happy ending. What could be more healing than that?
ReplyDeleteI think it's the fact that we do give our characters justice that draws me toward writing mysteries, too.
DeletePunctuation errors don’t bother me. Grammatical and spelling errors I feel should be caught at some level.
ReplyDeleteThere is one author whose characters are constantly strolling ambling or trotting throughout the book, they almost never just walk sometimes the same words occur within a couple of pages of each other. I notice their repeated use but overlook them since I really like the author’s books.
The ones that annoy me the most are inconsistencies of continuity,
such as the change of the time of day or season from one page to the next, constant minute descriptions of objects, clothes or hair styles especially if it is felt that you need to describe some with several different words for the same color e.g. chocolate, caramel, beige for different shades of brown. How many times do you need to describe the color of a car the main character is driving when it is irrelevant to the story.
The worst mistake I have encountered was when an author put in a real person who was known worldwide. The person was George Gershwin and he was described as playing the piano in a nightclub.
His being there was not the issue. The problem was this was an historical mystery in which the year was noted and the appearance occurred five years after Gershwin’s death in real life. Something that the author or one of the pre-publication readers should have known.
To me, this showed a lack of adequate research and editing and I couldn’t read the rest of the book because I could no longer trust the accuracy of other parts of the story. I have not read anything else by the author.
I've spoken with newbie authors who feel that these details don't matter because we're writing fiction. I try to tell them that readers are smart will definitely call you out when you get it wrong. The Gershwin timeline issue should absolutely have been caught by a copyeditor.
DeleteLOL, LOL, LOL – Oh, my! I generally know that I’m at the second to last edit when the thought of reading one more word of this novel AGAIN makes me nauseous. Yep – That’s how many times I read and revise, and read and revise, and read and revise. But I repeat myself! As a reader, I’ll forgive a typo or two, More than that and I wonder why the author or the publishing house thought the book was ready for prime time. Only once did I want to speak out. That was when a big five house published an author I love’s novel posthumously. It was so filled with horrific typos that it infuriated me. I suspect that the book was pushed out to coincide with the author’s passing. Know what-I think hard and long before I buy a book from that house, and often will opt to buy them on the second hand market.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not alone, Kait.
DeleteI probably do 8-10 editing sessions with each manuscript before my critique group and agent see it.
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